Bio:

The Flashy-Thing is a piece of hardware obtained from REDACTED in REDACTED by REDACTED on DATEREDACTED. It consists of a metal cylinder approximately eight inches long. One end features a small red lens. When a control stud is pressed by the user, the red lens generates a bright flash of light; anyone who is looking toward the lens is subjected a powerful psychic effect which is not yet fully understood.

What is understood is that the subject’s memories of the previous five minutes (approximately) are eliminated. {The science staff theorize that the device prevents the brain from transferring data from short-term to long-term memory, much like the lack of memory of the event that often follows a severe accident or assault—but without the accompanying physical trauma.) The subject is left in a brief (about one minute) but highly suggestible state. If he is instructed as to what he “remembers” of the last few minutes, he will accept this as the truth, often filling in details from his longer-term memory or imagination that reinforce the story he has been told.

The device is fragile, and requires considerable battery power. It is good for about 4 uses in the field before it must be returned to the armory for recharging (it uses an integral power source, and all efforts to employ more conventional batteries have failed). It is completely ineffective against anyone whose vision is filtered in any way (even ordinary sunglasses). It can be very dangerous to the user, so typically both hands are used to aim it or the user dons a pair of sunglasses with one hand while he readies the device with the other.